Sharad Pawar slapped?

As soon as NCP chief and union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar was slapped the other day by a frustrated youth in New Delhi, there were appropriate responses all around: The veteran minister himself played the incident down like a mature politician that he is, by remaining stubbornly unperturbed and saying that he wasn’t hurt at all (really? but that appeared to be quite a blow, sir); the police personnel quickly rounded the youth Harvinder Singh, a small time transporter from Rohini, in New Delhi, the media persons rallied behind him to interview him as he was being dragged towards the police van; Harvinder himself made the best of the limelight and thumped his chest in front of the cameras as if he were another Bhagat Singh walking to the gallows; the news channels churned the ready-made masala into ‘breaking news’ and gleefully broadcast the whole thing repeatedly till the mourning of Sachin’s another missed-hundredth-ton-in-nervous-nineties took over; the cartoonists got a new topic to depict humor; and the public at large scrambled to their laptops to mock the minister on social net-working sites- jokes were conjured, posted and laughed at; Harvinder was eulogized thoroughly for his ‘bravery’ and his photographs in blue striped t-shirt was flashed across the pages of Facebook and twitter. In the parliament, the ruling party and the opposition agreed in one voice to find ways to prevent such incidents and appropriately punish people who dare to slap them for their ‘service’ to the nation. End of the tamasha? Yes, very much, but not for the poor Harvinder Singh. He has been sent to the judicial custody for 14 days and he is sure to cool his heels in jail, his family’s claim of his mental instability notwithstanding. His fifteen minutes of fame faded and forgotten, no one will ask him for a glass of water as he wears out his footwear languishing between the courts and the jail. His business as a transporter will suffer as will his family; the minister will be unlikely to mend ways just because he was slapped; the news channels will find something more interesting and the public will eventually stop laughing at Harvinder Singh-Shard Pawar jokes (there’ll be many fresh ones). So was he a fool to have slapped a minister of a union government tainted of corruption on several counts? Yes, of course he was. And he was most probably seeking attention and publicity. A few days ago, this same Harvinder had slapped Sukhram in New Delhi court premises when he was sentenced for his involvement in a 1996 telecom scam. This piece of news didn’t make it to the channels probably because Sukhram is no longer in active politics and would not have positively affected the TRPs at all. So Mr Harvinder decides to pick a more prominent target this time, and while he was being dragged to the police van after the Pawar the incident, surrounded by the media persons, he saw his chance and shouted on top of his voice to stake his claim on Sukhram’s slapping as well, which you media people were so stone-hearted to not cover at all. So what was Mr Harvinder Singh angry about? Was he angry because the politicians are looting his country? No, in all probability, he was angry because the politicians are in a position to loot his country more than he himself could loot it. He shouted slogans that all netas were chors. But, are we all not thieves? We all thieve our country as per our capabilities and opportunities. Except for the salaried class, we are all required to ‘self-assess’ ourselves for the income tax payable to the country at the end of each financial year. Do we do that in all honesty? If not, we are looting our country. We execute our property transactions half in ‘black’, and half in ‘white’, to save on the income tax, stamp duties, and other municipal taxes. This way, we are looting our country. Do we accept goods without bill so as to evade VAT and other taxes? If yes, we are looting our country. We all want black-money-stashed-in-Swiss-bank-accounts to come back to India. How many of us business-class people don’t have black money? Are we angry about the black money in Swiss accounts because it is enormous in amount? In fact, all the black money in the civil society put together would perhaps amount to much more than the politician’s black money put together in Swiss banks.
 Each one of us is ready to loot the country at the first available opportunity. The only thing is that such opportunities are limited for us ordinary people, while they are tremendous for the politicians. So, are we angry that they have better opportunities to loot the country? Yes. Even Harvinder Singh himself, by being in the business of transport, must be, in all probability, doing his share of illegal manipulations in his business deals to make more money than he would have otherwise made in honest transactions. However, he is not to blame solely. The system is such in our country that he would not have survived the transport business market in Delhi had he been totally upright in his transactions. So, in the end, it is a matter of who gets to loot how much, and not who’s looting and who’s not. This is not to say that the errant politicians and other corrupt personnel must be allowed to go scot-free. No, but catch them if you can. A corrupt system is unlikely to catch and punish a corrupt part of itself.  Corruption is so deep-rooted in our system that it is now almost a way of life for us Indians. Take it or leave it.